in and out of somewhere else
by helloxbrightxeyes
Summary: some friendships are forged between the unlikeliest of people. heavily influenced by cigarette daydreams - cage the elephant
1. Chapter 1

Daryl Dixon has been smoking the same cigarettes since before he knew _how_ to smoke cigarettes, back when the nicotine would burn his young lungs and his brother's friends would sit back and laugh.

He's been smoking for a long ass time, and it's always been the same. Same brand (a good brand, expensive as hell, but he'll budget to buy cigarettes), from the same place, from the same person. For going on twenty-five years.

So he's confused when some blonde girl is standing behind the counter, because aside from the fact she doesn't even look old enough to sell _anything_ , she sure as shit ain't Dale. And it's Thursday, and this is Dale's Pit Stop, and since he's known what the hell a routine was Daryl's been sliding a twenty to Dale and Dale's been sliding two cartons to Daryl. On Thursdays. In Dale's Pit Stop. So what the hell?

"Hi, how are you?" He ignores her bright face and her bright smile, turning to look around the store for its owner. It takes two seconds; Dale's Pit Stop isn't really much of a shop. It's just four walls made of coolers full of beer and soda, three rows of old junk food, and shelves stocked high with tobacco behind the counter. Which he turns to look at now, to look at the wrong person. "Where's Dale?"

Her face gets even brighter, eyes and smile going wide, and he thinks there's something wrong with someone so happy for no reason. "He's at home today. I'm his niece, Beth!" She sticks her hand across the counter, like she wants a handshake. He ignores that too. She snaps her hand back after a second, still smiling like he's not being a dick. "I needed a summer job, so he's letting me run the store Wednesday through Saturday."

Daryl keeps looking at her. _Beth_. He wonders what the hell her parents were thinking when they named her that. It's an old name, a name that reminds him of schoolmarms. Beth sounds like the kind of girl who lives on a farm and knits sweaters and never goes out on Friday nights, very wholesome and boring. And looking at the girl in front of him - pale skin, bright blue eyes like a doll, white teeth all neat in a row, and long blonde hair she let out to dry all wavy and shiny in the summer air, Daryl thinks she looks just like her name sounds. Wholesome and good and boring.

He thinks all this and says nothing.

"Well can I help you find anything?" She asks, smiling. Fucking employee of the year.

"Get me two packs of Reds." She turns around to face the wall of tobacco and he watches her try to find what's right in front of her fucking face, and he's so annoyed. Because his life is chaotic. Nothing goes right, nothing works like clockwork, there's no damn order. Except for in his weekly exchange for some damn cigarettes. And now…

"Right in front of you." He growls, and she still manages to grab the wrong carton. But his palms are itching and he'd be outside enjoying the end of some well-earned nicotine by now if Dale were here, and he doesn't know why but her stupid smile is making him mad. So he snatches them up and slaps a twenty on the counter, fuck the change, and tears out of there fast. He's sucking the wrong shit down before he even reaches his truck. _Stupid bitch_.

Merle is in rare form by the time he reaches their apartment. He's lounging on the couch, feet propped up on the card table they pass for furniture, watching soap operas and drinking a beer. And none of that is unusual. But the place is clean and Merle looks clean, sober even. And Daryl knows he's in for some shit.

"Hey there, baby brother." Merle's voice is easy, his smile is wide. He looks and sounds relaxed, relatively normal, but Daryl can see it in his eyes something ain't right.

"Fuck's going on Merle?" He's mumbling, he doesn't really wanna know. But he sits in an armchair he'd picked up off the side of the road anyway.

"Nothin's going on that can't be fixed. We just need a couple bucks, that's all. Got some shit to sell, get Joe what he needs. But don't you worry, baby brother. College pricks are home for summer, we'll make Joe his money 'fore he even realizes it's gone." A smile, a swig of beer, and back to the TV.

For the love of _fucking Christ_. Merle'd just gotten out of jail, fucking around with Joe - one redneck asshole taking orders from an even bigger redneck asshole. Fucking around, smoking shit he was supposed to be selling, coming up short, robbing Peter to pay Paul.

It was always something with his brother. Always something and he always pulled Daryl into it and _shit_. Daryl was lucky he could even keep a decent job; that he had a boss who looked the other way. He'd never been arrested but he felt like his luck was running out. And he wanted to strangle Merle because he'd never dreamt of being an astronaut as a kid, never dreamt of being shit, but he sure as hell had never wanted to be a part-time drug dealer.

Daryl sits on his stupid lumpy couch, elbows on his knees and sighs. His brother is so stupid, so fucking dumb he wishes he would just get put away for good. And Daryl's so goddamn angry all the time, an anger that makes him itch inside, makes him want to break everything – himself, if he could. He's broke and he's never had his own bedroom and he feels like he was born dirty. He's thirty-five but he feels old; he knows time isn't being easy on him.

He feels tired and he feels like a piece of shit and he feels like if he just didn't wake up tomorrow everything would be better. He wants to lash out like a child, demand that Merle get a trade and a real job, stop living off of him. He wants to fling himself from the balcony. He wants to beat his dead father, beat his dead mother for ever having him. He wants to say no, he won't do it.

Instead, he lights up a cigarette and asks when they're leaving.

Selling is shitty, but now it's done and he wants a drink. Merle was right about the college kids. Stupid kids, rich and bored, will drown their made up sorrows in anything, including the crystal he and his brother sold at some party across town. They've made back Joe's shit, thank God. Merle thinks the bar is a good idea, some nasty beer and a nasty woman for later. But Daryl wants the relative quiet of their apartment, so he drops his brother off and heads to Dale's Pit Stop.

He just wants to pick up a six pack, but when he rolls up a few minutes before midnight, he sees blondie sweeping up and kind of just wishes he could die. For the fifth time that day. He gets out the truck anyway.

"Hey! Run out already?" She asks, stopping her sweeping to smile at him as he walks in. She looks genuinely happy to see him, which is just…weird.

But he ignores her, as is becoming custom, and walks past her to a cooler, grabbing some beer. She moves to ring him up and he slides exact change across the counter.

"So, you seem to come in here a lot. Not a lot of people came through yesterday, even less today." Blondie stops chatting and looks at him very seriously for a few seconds before asking to see his ID.

And Daryl thinks he's going to lose his shit. Right here. In this stupid little store. Because he's just spent the last few hours selling homemade crystal to dicks, and she already messed up his smokes, and now she wants to see his fucking ID?

"You serious, girl?" He's cutting her a glare that's been building all day, and all she can do is smile.

"Beth," she corrects gently, "and I know it's silly, but Uncle Dale told me to ID anyone that looked under forty. And sometimes you just can't be sure."

He just about throws the plastic card at her. Which makes her smile. Because fucking _of course_.

"Thank you, Daryl," she says, reading his name off the card and handing it back. He snatches it, grabs his beer, and turns to leave. The couch sounds good as anything right now, and he can't wait to be there.

He's got one foot out the door before her voice stops him.

"Wait! I know I'm probably really annoying, and I know you probably wanna get home. But I've been craving a milkshake since this morning, and you look like you've had a bad day. So I don't know if you wanna go to Patty's with me, but you can. If you'd like."

And he's staring at her like she's stupid, because she is. Small girl, probably five feet nothing, weighing jack shit, asking strangers out to eat in the dead of night. Strangers who don't even _like_ her.

But Daryl runs on certain patterns – he doesn't say the things he's thinking, and he generally does shit he doesn't want to do. So, he nods, waits for her to lock up the store, and clears a space in his passenger seat.

And that's how he ends up at Patty's with Beth Greene every Thursday night.

The girl is a force of nature. She's eighteen and she gets what she wants. She smiles and stands up for herself, always. He admires her, though he'd never tell anyone that. She's curious about him, asks him questions when he obviously doesn't want to talk about whatever's pissing him off that day.

Merle is family, blood. He loves Merle but he doesn't like him. And he wouldn't say he likes Beth, not exactly, but he tolerates her. It feels good to see someone other than his ugly brother, other than the shits he works with. It feels good for someone to look at him and not look away, not act all prissy and scared, like he's up to no good all the time.

Patty's is good. Several hours after buying cigarettes, the right ones now, Daryl picks her up and drives them ten minutes outside of town to a little diner that's usually empty around midnight. It's quiet, the waitress is good, and the burgers are decent. Beth gets her milkshake and gets on Daryl's nerves and he doesn't hate it.

Tonight though, she's got a glint in her eye that he doesn't trust. Merle's been gone for a few days now, so life is quiet, but there's always a bit of apprehension, fear of the unknown when his brother skips town. He tries not to let that show, but Beth reads him like an open book.

"You're upset," she says, sipping on some milkshake, "but we'll get to that later." _Nah_ , he thinks, _we won't_. She continues, "There's a party. Next weekend. And I really want you to come with me."

And she's looking at him with those saucer eyes, the way she does. And Daryl feels something he's been feeling lately. No, he doesn't like Beth Greene. Not really. But he thinks she's pretty. He's never seen anything really pretty in his life – his mama wasn't, the girls he and Merle fuck aren't. But Beth is. She's clean and bright and her smile is wide. She's annoying, but she's pretty.

Still. He ain't going to a party. Not with a bunch of kids. Not with this girl. They have an understanding in this booth. And that's it. There is no relationship outside of nicotine and milkshake fixes, and he likes it like that.

And the fuck would he look like, showing up to some barn party with this girl? Is he supposed to swing back beer with the same college pricks he's probably sold to before? Going to this party with this girl is one of the biggest hell no's of his adult life. And there have been some pretty big ones.

He tells her as such. But girl can't be phased, so after milkshakes, after awkwardly avoiding talking about Merle skipping town, when he's driving her back to her car at Dale's, she hands him a scrap of paper from her purse.

"It's just the address," she says, not reacting to his flinch as her fingers brush his palm. "I don't know, in case you get bored, change your mind or something." And she's gone, smiling like she knows him. Like she knows he'll show up.

Which he does. Show up, that is, kind of. Merle's still gone, he doesn't work Saturday nights, and he ain't got jack shit else to do.

Well, it's not exactly that. Beth'd seemed nervous two days prior, sitting in their booth at Patty's. And Beth is generally a lot of things, perky and too damn eager mostly, but never nervous. It sets him on edge, but he doesn't ask. She just barely skirts around the fact her ex-boyfriend will be there.

It's juvenile. It's really fucking stupid shit, shit that he couldn't be concerned with when he was her age – being nervous to go to a party just cause someone you used to suck face with would be there. But, he doesn't know, call it intuition or something, girl who invites strangers out at night wouldn't be nervous because of just that.

So, he's worried. Maybe. Though he refuses to think of it that way as he sucks down a second cigarette, still sitting in his truck, parked on the edge of this kid's property. He's worried, and he's here, and this is fucking stupid.

She doesn't need a knight in shining armor, and if she did, he sure in hell ain't that guy. She's probably fine. Probably drinking wine coolers and talking about college and letting some pale, pansy ass boy hold her hand.

 _Probably_. But he can't get the image of her two days ago out of his head – pleading smile, barely contained panic as she asked one more time, _please Daryl, come with me, it'll be fun_. The look of resignation, determined but resigned none the less, as he told her not a chance in hell.

And just as he's thinking, simultaneously - _she shouldn't have come if she didn't want to_ and _maybe I should just go check it out_ , someone is pounding on his passenger side door before cranking the handle. In the black of the night, bonfire light illuminates her pale face and pale hair from behind her. He can make out tear tracks on her face and kind of scrambles, mostly falls, to open the door for her.

She practically jumps in, smelling like fire and woods and beer, and immediately starts crying. Screaming, really. It isn't at all how he imagined she'd cry, if he'd ever imagined such a thing. She's usually a composed girl, sunny and aware that she's pissing him off or pushing too far. She's calm under pressure. She has a sure voice and a clever smile and a lot of other pansy shit that doesn't equate to the fucking wailing she's doing right now.

How the fuck did his life come to this? What is this, even? He doesn't let himself be in situations with small, barely legal adults. Especially not those that cry. He sighs. Lights another cigarette. Considers lung cancer, thinks he'll sneak smokes if he ever needs one of those breathing machines. Listens to her choppy, sporadic, tear choked breathing.

"What the hell happened to you?" And if he sounds like he doesn't care, it's because he's really confused right now.

She doesn't look at him, keeps crying, but answers through hiccups, "I shouldn't have come. I mean, you should've come with me when I asked you to, because I couldn't just _not_ come. But I shouldn't have."

She's damn near hysterical and his skin is crawling. He doesn't know why the fuck he came, because Lord forbid his being here actually account for anything…and now he's dealing with this.

He wants to handle it as well as he can, doesn't want to actively hurt her more, but the best he can come up with is: "The fuck are you goin on about?"

More tears. More hiccups. All of a sudden a very loud, unanimous shout comes from the direction of the house and then whatever music was playing inside can be heard from all the way out here. Her sobs get louder. He's a grown man, he seriously can't believe this is his Saturday night. So he starts up the truck and starts back toward town, her car be damned.

They make it all the way to his apartment without her saying a word. He just wants a beer; going to that party was stupid and a bad idea and he's already fucked his night, but he can salvage part of it. He wants a beer, he's taken her away from a place she obviously didn't want to be, and now he doesn't care if she walks home or sits in his truck all night or follows him up.

She's following him up. Which…okay. Whatever.

His apartment is a mess, but when isn't it, and Merle still isn't back. He doesn't think his brother's going to be showing up tonight, so this is fine. Not how he ever envisioned a Saturday night, but fine.

He doesn't offer her a seat, actually hasn't said shit to her after leaving the party, but she looks around with tear bright eyes and decides the armchair he frequents is a good choice before plopping herself down in it. She kicks off her shoes and hugs her knees to her chest, making herself small and comfortable, and he can't handle the surrealism of Dale's niece dozing in his living room, so he takes approximately three steps into the kitchen and grabs a warm beer from atop the counter. Pauses, grabs another.

Turns out Beth is a lightweight. Turns out, Beth's never actually had a drink before. She's not a sad drunk, thank God, but she is a talker. And despite Daryl's complete lack of encouragement, she tells him a lot. Too much, actually. Shit he'd keep close to his chest if the physical evidence didn't give him away.

She tells him about her mama: dead. She tells him about her daddy: a once recovered alcoholic who couldn't handle her mama's death; a man drinking himself sick again. (He tries not to think of the bitter irony of a girl working in a liquor store to make up for the money her alcoholic daddy is drinking away). She tells him about her brother and sister: _actual adults with actual lives_ , she says, who went back to their lives in the city after The Funeral; who left her and her daddy and the farm.

She tells him about one time in her bathroom, very late at night, when feeling nothing hurt worse than feeling anything ever had; when she thought glass to her skin was the best option to feel something. She tells him this in such a detached way, like it happened to someone she used to know, that he feels uncomfortable. She tells him this and rubs at a spot on her wrist he notices is usually covered up, and breathes, _but that wasn't right, and then I felt too much of everything_.

And now the party, and how some fuck up of a kid she'd been dating when her life was great couldn't handle her family shit, couldn't handle her sadness, and ended things. How she'd been invited out for the first time in a long time, and she wanted to go, felt like she had to because all people did anymore was talk about her – how much she'd changed and _did you hear what she tried to do?_ So she'd gone and Jamie or Jessie or Jimmy or whoever had been there with a new girl, and no one had talked to her, and nothing actually happened or went wrong, but there were too many people, and _I don't know, I think it was a panic attack_. He still isn't sure how it would've helped for him to be there, but he doesn't say that, hands her another beer.

Maybe she is a sad drunk. Maybe he shouldn't give her another beer, what with what she just told him, but he's the last person equipped to handle people and their emotions. So, let this beer put her under and he'll handle the rest in the morning. Because this isn't the Beth he knows and this night has spiraled easily into one of the weirdest he can remember and if he thought it could be salvaged he thought wrong.

She's almost done with her second beer, so he leaves her to smoke on the balcony that groans like it isn't supposed to support his weight.

He's thinking about everything she told him; it makes him angry. Because there are routines in his life, so damn precious in their rarity, and Beth Greene telling sob stories in his apartment does not fit in that routine. Because Beth Greene doesn't get to be sad.

It isn't her place to be fucked up. That's his domain. They don't have a relationship outside of nicotine and milkshake fixes, except maybe now they kind of do, but in that relationship there's balance – Daryl gets to be surly and angry and for good reason, because his life is fucked and his brother is an addict and he has nightmares that keep him up at night and make him a dick in the morning. That leaves space for only one other kind of person – a Beth, someone who smiles and laughs and thinks about stupid shit and doesn't get it, someone easy and light to be around.

She doesn't get to encroach on Daryl's territory. She doesn't get to shift shit around, doesn't get to have darkness. Daryl doesn't need any more of that, doesn't want any more of that. If she's got darkness, then there really is no light and he's pissed that he even started _depending_ on her for that.

He reaches for another cigarette, but todays been a fucking day, and this pack is gone. He's about to turn back into the apartment, look for his second pack, but she's there when he turns, blocking his way.

She looks sleepy. More than sleepy, she looks bad – her eyes are red and puffy, her hair has gone frizzy and unhandled, her dress is wrinkled and she's been spilling beer on it between hiccups. But besides that, the way she's holding herself looks like she's given up, like a deflated balloon. Like every smile and every laugh was a lie and she can't do it anymore. This is what's really left of this girl, this is what she has at the end of the day.

It's sad. And he's still angry at her for not being what he wants her to be. But looking at her looking at him, with eyes that have given up, with a scar bright as the moon, he admires her – she can fake it; he can't. He's had three decades to get his shit together and at least _try_ , but he can't fake it and people look at him and _know_ him. But Beth can make herself anyone she wants to be, and he knows in the morning she'll be bright again, she'll be full of air and life. It's disconcerting to know she becomes this _thing_ when the lights go out, but it fills him with pride to know that no one knows about her weaknesses, no one is allowed behind what she presents.

"I'm tired now," she mumbles. He almost tells her it's obvious, almost tells her to move so he can get another smoke. He also almost tells her she's fucked everything up being the way she is; that he thinks she's strong despite being so small.

But, because he's Daryl, he settles for telling her to sleep on the couch.

He was right about the next morning, about her being a fully inflated balloon again. She doesn't even act like anything happened, just sings along as he drives her to get her car and promises to see him Thursday.

And Thursday afternoon is very normal. She has another customer when he gets there, so he has to wait, but he slides her change and she slides him smokes and when she asks if he'll come back later for Patty's, he grunts his usual yes.

He's beginning to think Saturday night was all in his head. Wouldn't be the first time he's hallucinated.

But then they get in their booth, and he knows some shit is coming because she was too quiet on the ride over.

"I really want to apologize," she starts, fiddling with the paper from her straw.

His body clenches up, shoulders first, down to his toes. This is uncomfortable territory already, and he doesn't have the comfort of a drink or a smoke to mask it.

So he stares at her, tries to make his eyes go dead, because that usually works in letting people know he doesn't want to talk. It only encourages her.

"Just let me say it," she rolls her eyes. "I'm really sorry for going berserk Saturday, and I'm sorry for crying in your car, and for sleeping on your couch. And, okay, I'm sorry, but your couch kind of smells." She has the audacity to smile at him now, and it's true, the couch does smell, so he doesn't smile but he doesn't glare either.

"But you handled it like a champ, so thank you." And now she's smiling at him in earnest, like he's done her some big favor.

Maybe he has. This girl doesn't have friends anymore, barely has a family. They're the same, him and her.

He shrugs a little, nods like his neck is stiff; doesn't glare but doesn't say any of the sappy shit he's thinking, either.

"You're sweet when you try, Daryl Dixon," and she's hoisting herself across the table, nearly knocking her five dollar milkshake over, to plant a kiss on his cheek; she smells like his cigarette smoke from the car ride over and sweat and a little like generic shampoo.

She's too busy righting her milkshake to notice his blush.

Someone knocking a few days later wakes him. It isn't Merle, because unfortunately Merle always has a key and never has the presence of mind to knock before barging in.

It isn't Merle – it's Beth. Standing in the hallway of his apartment in an old t-shirt and shorts, looking bleary eyed and a little lost.

"The hell are you doing here, girl?" He asks, not stepping back because he's not inviting her in. He's still sleepy, and she can't just show up at his place, and don't she know what boundaries are?

"Just wanted to get out the house is all," and she's edging so close to him he has to step back, lest she brush up against him. So now they're both just…standing in the doorway. And she looks like she doesn't know why she's here; he sure as hell doesn't.

But then it's like she comes here all the time, going to his armchair and making herself comfortable again. Beth is a good person, doesn't say anything about the pizza left out on the table, or the dirty clothes littering the floor. She just curls in on herself and looks at the TV – an infomercial channel he'd fallen asleep to the night before.

And he really, really doesn't know what to do. Which, he thinks, is happening too damn often around a girl he never imagined he would see so much of.

But she doesn't seem like she really wants anything from him, except to use his goddamn armchair, and for as much as he hates random, chaotic shit happening in his life, Daryl's accustomed to it. And at least it's this girl throwing a wrench in his plans (he was going to sleep all day, maybe crack open a few beers, then sleep some more). He's good at ignoring people and he's good at acting invisible. So he lays down on the other, shittier couch, and watches infomercials with her.

"I'm kind of hungry," she mumbles a few hours later. He wasn't exactly sleeping, more in the space in-between, but her declaration is the first thing either of them has said since she arrived, and he feels like she's woken him up.

"Order a pizza," and he's reaching behind the couch in the general direction he threw the menu last night. When he can't find it he gives up and stares back at the TV – they're hyping up Tupperware that's fucking useless and he wonders why she's stayed here so long.

But Beth is hungry, and she gets what she wants. So despite his lack of help, thirty minutes later she's opening a fresh box of pizza on his card table. She doesn't ask about plates or napkins, and he's thankful because there aren't any.

Instead, she moves the box to her lap and stretches her feet out so they rest on the table. She ordered mushroom and olive pizza and her toenails are painted blue. He observes both of these at the same time and files them both under being inconsequential; except, her feet are pretty, in a way he didn't know things like feet could be. They're just…there. Dainty and pale, and now he notices she has strong, slender legs. They aren't tan the way he would expect for a girl that lives on a farm, but that's okay. Her legs are pretty too.

"You should have some," she's saying, trying to stretch so he can grab a slice. But it's his lazy day and he isn't reaching for shit, not even food.

"Fine," she huffs, and she's the most ungraceful thing he's ever seen as she gets to her feet, pizza box balanced in one palm, and shuffles to the couch. He keeps trying to convince himself he doesn't like this girl, that she's more annoying than anything. But he wants to laugh at her frustration when she can't just lift his legs up enough to make a seat for herself. Her touch isn't as intrusive as her kiss, and he doesn't really mind it in that it doesn't piss him off, so after a while he lifts his legs for her, and she scooches in on the spot he vacates.

He lets his legs fall back over her own, and she grunts out a "here," before tossing the box on his stomach.

And he knows this isn't so bad. It isn't Merle, strung out and coming up with dumb plans, and it isn't being alone, which usually has him working through a six pack to avoid his own mind. It's kind of like their Thursdays together, except today she's so quiet, and he hasn't forgotten her face when he opened the door. But if she doesn't want to talk about it, he isn't going to initiate that conversation.

He doesn't know if this, being around someone and not feeling suffocated, not wanting to cut them with words so they can feel as bad as he does, is what friendship is. But, he figures as she wiggles down until his feet rest on her stomach, he figures this is close.

And for all the peace of mind he gets around this girl, for all the times she almost makes him smile or gets him to blush, maybe she's getting something out of this, too. Maybe he's actually useful to her, a grumpy bear to poke just for giggles, or a place to crash when shit ain't right.

And if he likes the feel of her stomach under his feet, soft but strong like she seems to be; if he likes the way she smiles or how bright her eyes get after she's been crying; if the sound of her voice does anything close to making him feel calm…then that's okay.

He can be friends with this girl. And if she wants to move pizza boxes out of the way and get up close to his side; if she wants to thank him for the nothingness that has been their day in a voice verging on tears but soft with gratitude; if she wants to give him another kiss, more on his jaw than his cheek this time…well, that's okay, too.

So, Thursday's in Dale's and at Patty's, and sometimes random weekends in his apartment. But Merle is back now, so he's given her his number…can't just have her coming over when his brother is home. He's 100% positive he doesn't know what the fuck they're doing. Trying to explain it to Merle would be a mess, impossible because Merle takes everything out of context and because hanging out with a teenage girl just doesn't make sense for him.

But it's happening, and it's good.

He was right about her being good for him – he looks forward to Thursday in a way he hasn't looked forward to anything in a long time. It's good to be reminded he matters to someone, to have another part of a routine that justifies his being. It's good to have someone smile at him, though he doesn't smile back.

And he was right about him being good for her – because her daddy is dying, she's pretty sure of it, and even with the job, she can't afford school in the fall. She's embarrassed all the time, and angry because her siblings got to go to school, and now she's been left behind. It's uncomfortable sometimes, and he never knows what to say, but she tells him about shit and he listens, and when her daddy drinks himself under, he's got an armchair with her name on it.

It's happening, and it's good, but he's doing more than noticing her now and she's getting damn regular with those kisses to his cheek, to his jaw or forehead or whatever she can reach – once on the neck, when he was driving her back to her car, and he swore he was going to drive them off the road.

It doesn't feel sexual, not in the dirty way shit like this has always felt with the occasional chick he's fucked. It feels like…like a bunch of shit he doesn't have the words for. But mostly, when he's noticing her, when he finds himself thinking about her face or her hair or her voice, it feels like a want so simultaneously subdued and aflame that it balances itself out to nothing – like maybe he's always wanted her and maybe he'll always want her, and it's okay to just _be_ in that. He doesn't feel like he _has_ to do anything, now or ever. That noticing her, and wanting her, and burning hot for a few minutes after her soft lips leave his skin, is enough.

"I'm not ready to go home yet," she says after a Thursday night spent teasing about his hair.

Truthfully, he isn't ready, either.

Merle's found yet another dealer, this one dirt cheap, so he's been strung out for the past few days. And now that he knows what an escape feels like…he never kept the place clean, per se, but living in Merle's dirt and around Merle's shit makes him angry; reminds him of who he is and where his place in life lays.

She doesn't want to go home to her alcoholic daddy, and he doesn't want to go home to his junkie, redneck brother.

So he drives and she turns on the radio, singing to whatever station she can get a clear signal on. He drives until they reach an abandoned parking lot, but they don't get out. Summer is ending, and there's a little nip in the air at almost two in the morning.

They both have work tomorrow, but she's used to being tired for her Friday shift now, and he's just used to being tired.

For a while, neither of them does much of anything. She's singing along, and he's making a point to blow the heavy smog of cigarette smoke out the window – she once commented her clothes were starting to smell like him.

It's a quiet night and he's thinking about nothing; it feels good. His mind feels warm, devoid of anger for the time being. They can see nothing as far as their sight will let them – not far away enough from the city to see the stars. Just black. That feels good, too, like being in a bubble. Just the smell of nicotine and the sound of Beth's little voice, more humming than singing.

And then she's right there next to him, on him, her head warm against his shoulder, hair soft and unbrushed against his arm.

"Gonna smell like smoke, girl," he says. But he doesn't much care, and he knows she doesn't either.

She says nothing, keeps humming. But now she's nosing at his neck.

This is…new. Kissing him there isn't, not anymore. But she's never just nosed at it.

It's enough to make him feel warm inside, makes him feel languid all the while his stomach clenches. The feel of her breathing on him is almost distracting enough that he doesn't notice she's moving higher. But he notices, and she is – nosing her way up and up, across the hairs on his chin, taking pause there and squeezing his arm. He can feel the weight of her eyes on him, and he doesn't know what to do, never ever does. So he smokes, tense as the button of her nose meets the edge of his lips.

And he's sucking on that cigarette like it'll save his life; in and in until his lungs burn with it like when he first started and he's forced to exhale. Before all the smoke can even get out, she presses her lips to his, fast like she had to make herself do it, fast like she's nervous.

They don't move. There's still smoke burning in his mouth and her hand's gone slack on his arm.

But her lips are so much softer on his own than on his skin, and it's okay, he thinks, to admit to himself that he wants more than to think about her, that he wants this – wants to know the taste of her mouth. He wants to feel the strength of her stomach, of her legs. He wants the tangles of her hair in his hands.

He pulls away, exhales what's left in his mouth above her head, and leans back down just as she's leaning up, pulling her bottom lip into his mouth. And it's the craziest thought, but he has it right then, that he lived so long without her mouth on his, without her voice and presence a constant in his days; that ever since befriending her, he's forgotten what hate strong enough he wishes he were dead feels like.

She tastes like milk from her shake and cherry from her Chapstick, waxy but good, so much better than acrid, cheap alcohol. Her mouth is soft and gentle, warm when it opens for him, and he thinks she must like the way he tastes because she moans harmonious at his tongue in her mouth.

When she pulls away to breathe, she doesn't look like some lost, sad girl unprepared to go home and face her reality. She looks sedated and sleepy, blinks slow like molasses and so damn pretty; more than pretty, beautiful in that he wants to kiss her like that all the time just to see her face at the end. And she looks victorious. Like she's gotten her way, and she has, but also like she's proven something to herself.

His cigarette is almost nothing now, and she slides it from his fingers to hers, catching it between her lips.

He doesn't want her to taste like him, and it doesn't necessarily look right, Beth with a filter sticking out of her mouth, but it's kind of cute. So he watches, lids heavy but calm, waiting for her mouth to be free so he can have it again. Because kissing her is good; being with her is good. It softens his edges even as it makes his insides clench and his dick harden.

She's still attached to his side, sucking in then blowing out into his face, smiling wide and slow as the smoke swirls around, silky but heavy with heat before disappearing. She does it again, then twice more before the thing is gone; she throws it out the window like she's seen him do countless times before.

He catches her mouth again just as she's opened it to start singing along to a commercial. He doesn't need to think much doing this, and she isn't either. It isn't rushed, lips and teeth don't crash together; nobody's fighting for dominance. It's been a long day for both of them, and this feels like such a revelation, such a long time coming that the excitement of it is exhausting. They're kissing, and it's enough.

It's almost like a trance, her hand at his bicep, one of his at the nape of her neck, testing the soft baby hairs against her neck there. He could fall asleep like this, he thinks.

But a blaring sound cuts into the middle of a song neither of them were hearing. She's slow to pull away, and twists the volume down to nothing but white noise.

"It's not even tornado season yet," she yawns next to him, annoyed at their interruption. She's tired, and so is he. His brother won't be asleep yet, but her daddy should be.

When he drops her off at Dale's, he turns the radio back up just in time to hear _this is not a warning_ , before the sound of Johnny Cash crackles into the cab of his truck.

 **This will be a story told in two parts. By no means is it very long, but I've never written anything of such length for pleasure, and while I'm excited I also just wanted to get this part out into the universe. I've said it before, but I'll say it again: I love this ship, and I've been reading it for a while now; I love writing them but it can be so challenging at times. Daryl is really hard to capture without the emotions we're used to from S3 onwards…just grabbing that pure anger he lived with before he trusted and loved and it was taken away from him, and doing something with it is interesting but so difficult. And Beth is just a walking cliché I really don't want to fall into but, like, how can you not? Plus, my forte is writing small scenes from the midst of stories, not creating the stories themselves. This has been a great challenge and it's evolved and is evolving continuously – I didn't know what I wanted to write when I started it, except for the first two or three sentences. If it all crashes and burns, I'll blame it on** _ **Cigarette Daydreams**_ **by Cage the Elephant for even putting the slightest of ideas in my mind. Thank you so much for reading this xx**


	2. Chapter 2

**I couldn't resist adding Beth's POV, so this is now a three-parter. Do I have** _ **any**_ **idea what I'm doing? No. Am I totally out of my element? Yes. Am I doing it anyway? Yes. I pray this flows well with Part One, I pray you enjoy.**

The alarms start at six o'clock on a Monday in early October. She's making dinner, listening to an old Mazzy Star album on her iPod, but the blaring whirringmakes her tear her headphones out and move to the nearest window. When she pushes the curtain open, she's confused. The sky is calm, the sun just about ready to start its arc downward.

 _It isn't tornado season_.

She thinks they must be testing the systems, like they sometimes do, and moves back to the cutting board.

But they don't stop. And something about this situation is making her back prickle with fear. She's never been afraid on the farm, despite its wide open spaces and acres of isolation; even when everyone either died or left or caved in on themselves. She's felt uncomfortable, suffocated, sadness dull enough to drown, and pain sharp enough to dismember. But never fear.

Now, as the sirens blare on and on, she's acutely aware of how alone she is. Her daddy went _out_ a little after lunch, which means he won't be back until morning, and she feels so deeply unsettled that she throws her uncooked food in the fridge and moves to the living room.

It's still an open space, but it feels cozier and safer, and she thinks she's being a baby, but she turns on the TV just for the comfort of background noise.

The sirens are blaring and the TV is throwing the sound of static into the mix. The grey, shaky light of it hits a picture of her family and she's quick to change the channel. Except MTV is static, too.

.

Once, when she was maybe ten, she got her first bad grade. A spelling test that she'd forgotten to study for; the teacher had marked the paper with a scary red D and a note to please show her parents. Beth was a good student, so used to her parents' praise of her intelligence, and hadn't known what to do. She'd hid the test in her bag, thrown the bag on the couch, and went about her weekend.

She'd left her bag in the open too long, and when she heard her name – her mama's voice, heavy on the Elizabeth in anger, she'd known she'd been found out.

She knows it's dumb, knows she's lived through so much worse than a stupid failed spelling test and the punishment that came after. Still, the sinking that she'd felt in her stomach, the change in body heat from hot to cold so fast it'd left her sweating, the way her head hadn't been able to catch up with what was happening all those years ago…it's the only comparison to the fear she feels now.

Something isn't right, and she doesn't know what it is, but the TV is throwing wicked shadows over portraits of a family she doesn't have any more and her insides feel exposed in how strongly they prickle and she's sweating so bad she doesn't realize she's crying.

But the body can only do one of two things – fight or flight, and several minutes later she realizes she's doing neither. There's nothing to fight here. So she grabs her keys and drives.

.

The radio doesn't work either, so she settles for a caseless CD after realizing she's left her phone and iPod on the farm.

It isn't enough to drown out the sound of sirens, but she isn't alone once she hits the main road and a very small part of her calms at that.

She drives to a little league baseball diamond in the heart of town and parks her car. It's not chaotic out here, more excited than anything else, and she finds some sense of adrenaline in that as she fast-walks past the growing crowds meandering out of buildings. Everyone's looking toward the sky, like a twister is going to form before their eyes; people love storms, love disasters, too, until they actually hit.

But she doesn't have time to wait for a twister that won't happen, and as fast as the adrenaline rush hit her it's gone, replaced by the exhaustion that usually follows her panic attacks.

She's here to find her daddy, and while she knows this strip of road houses his favorite bars, she doesn't know which one he's at tonight. So she starts at the first, and when he isn't there, the second, then third.

This day is weird, some Twilight Zone level stuff, and being in these bars in the daytime, with its patrons and keeps a little riled up because of _whatever_ is happening, is making everything very surreal.

After her mama died but before she'd tried to kill herself, she'd had a problem day dreaming, getting caught up in the double vision of how she saw the world – what was going down, and what was going down in her head. It was easy to get lost in her mind and she'd have to remind herself: _I am Beth Greene; I am seventeen years old…_ to feel any kind of centered at all.

She does that now, murmuring to herself as she pops in and out of bars, trying to stay grounded in the here and now, trying to find her daddy and maybe find out what the hell is going on.

When she leaves the last bar, still fatherless, her feet kind of give up, and she finds herself slowing until she abruptly stops. She stops and stands in the middle of a street she's been down a million times and just looks. The sirens are blaring and the bars and shops have emptied themselves out into the streets; a group of kids are playing tag, there are people propped up on curbs sipping beer…

And she wonders if she's crazy. Wonders if she's the only one who feels even the slightest bit off about this. Wonders if she's in her head again, imagining the blaring being worse than it really is.

She decides it doesn't matter, and heads back through the crowds, slower this time, until she's in her car. She doesn't cry; doesn't have the energy for it, and something about the last few minutes of her life doesn't really call for tears. But she's worried about her daddy…she's been doing a piss poor job of caring for him these last few months, and she's known for a while he was going to drink himself to death, but not being able to find him tonight of all nights is just…she's worried. That's all.

But there's nothing left to do here, so she lets the ignition rumble to life.

.

When she gets to Dale's Pit Stop, it's locked up, lights shut off. So, there goes that idea. It's quieter on this street, in that not so many people are around, but she was really hoping to at least find her uncle.

Sometimes, Beth forgets herself. Forgets she's eighteen and unpolished, but it's all she can be as she mumbles half angry, half annoyed to herself a string of complaints consisting mostly of _literally_ , and _ugh_. She doesn't know what to do, but the sun is setting and that _damn siren_ just keeps going; she restarts the CD, and turns it up to an obnoxious level she's never even touched before, just so she doesn't start feeling alone again, so she can act like she isn't afraid.

She considers that her daddy could be home, then considers in almost the same thought that he's definitely not home. And thinking about being back there is just…not happening.

And then, she thinks of Daryl.

And she laughs at herself, alone in her car, because it's _just like her_ to think of the most obvious thing last. She doesn't know what's going on, doesn't know where or her daddy or uncle are, doesn't even know if he'll be home…but she knows that armchair would be really comforting right now.

.

When Beth knocks on his door, the sun is gone and the sirens seem so much louder. She's trying to quell down the fear nagging at her at the idea of him not being home, when the door opens.

"Girl…" He's been drinking, she can tell, in the heavy slur of his voice. And he's definitely surprised to see her, but he steps back immediately, and she doesn't smile and she can't forget about her daddy, but she feels a little lighter stepping past him and into his apartment.

And then she notices someone on the couch, someone whose eyes are fixed acutely on her; dangerous eyes and a dangerous smirk, like a snake, she thinks. The smirks sneers wide, a play at a friendly smile, something that looks scary on the large head it's fixed to.

 _His brother._

"Whadda we have here, baby brother," and the scraggle of his voice, serious and mean, sets her right back to the heavy fear and discomfort she's felt since sirens interrupted _Fade Into You_ hours ago.

His eyes leave her for Daryl for a split second, Daryl who's standing so close she could grab his hand or kiss his lips or any of the other things she'd thought about doing when she got here. She know he's going to do it before it happens, and then he does it - pulls a cigarette from his pocket and lights in right there in the apartment. And when she glances up at him, he's glaring at his brother, harder than he's ever glared at her.

It's tense, silent except for the siren.

"Answer me, boy," and Beth realizes his brother was being _nice_ earlier; that this is what mean sounds like, that this is a voice that breaks and hurts and forges anger and steel.

And Daryl is reduced to something small, something she feels in herself – like when she thinks she's doing better only to wake up feeling dead the next day, only to realize that for all the strives she's made, she's still mixed with a little weakness at her core.

He's not wilted, he's not afraid; the anger his brother evokes is obvious, and instead of making him bigger, scarier…it shrinks him down. Just a little.

"Her name's Beth," he says like he has to, and like he hates that he has to. But his voice is so relaxed it surprises her. She expected snarling, expected the terse way he'd spoken to her the first day they met. This, she thinks, definitely isn't his first rodeo.

It's mercurial the way the oldest brother changes face – he melts his tension, shows less teeth in his smile.

"Well tell her to sit down, then."

.

It's weird, being here with his brother, _Merle_. She sits in the armchair, but finds little comfort in it. The sirens still blare, and the TV here isn't working either. So, there's sitting. She can tell she's interrupted their evening – Daryl from his drinking and Merle from his…she doesn't see any drugs but she thinks he's high on something.

So, there's sitting. Her in her chair, the brothers on the couch. There's no talking, save for the random comments Merle makes, mostly to himself.

She's uncomfortable, she realizes.

It isn't the first time she's come over since that Thursday in his truck, when she made herself kiss him. Sometimes, she comes by to escape home, but sometimes she comes just because she _wants_ to. She comes over and they watch crap TV and make out until they're tired. Or they cuddle. But she knows she shouldn't use that word, because it would set Daryl into an outrage; they lie down with one another on his stupid, lumpy couch, and maybe there's a fair amount of giggling on her part.

And in doing those things, in being so close to his face…she notices things. He's not young, maybe not even aging well. His eyes are often times sunken in and the hairs in his beard are sprinkled with grey. The skin around his neck is starting to sag, and wrinkles are sketching a home into his face.

And he drinks a lot. Not like her daddy, not dangerous, but he likes his beer. He drinks a lot, and he smokes even more, and he doesn't exactly keep his place clean.

And she's find with all that, really fine. He can be older than her, he can drink and smoke and leave his socks around his living room. She likes him, and it's never made her uncomfortable.

Until now. Because she's _eighteen_ years old, and instead of waiting these sirens out at home with her family, or being unaware on some college campus somewhere like everyone else she graduated with, she's in an apartment with two grown men.

But she can't go home. This was her final destination, and she's made it and they've let her in, and she'll sit in her armchair quietly until they both pass out if she has to. She'll stay in this apartment, comfort be damned, until those sirens _cut it out_ , and then she'll make sure to never come by when Merle is home again. She likes Daryl, and that feels like a crime with his brother around.

.

And so the night passes, until Merle slips off to sleep.

And suddenly, Daryl isn't so drunk anymore.

"C'mon, you ain't sleepin out here." He's heading to a hallway and she's following, until they're in a room that makes her heart ache just a little.

Spartan isn't a good word, but maybe sad is. It's a small room, in a small apartment, and there's a bed, and a pile of clothes and shoes in a corner. And that's it. No desk or drawers or bed frame. Beth thinks about Daryl, a lot, but she's never thought about where he sleeps; she's never imagined how he wakes up in the morning, or how long it takes him to pick out an outfit for the day. And now she's looking at him and looking at his room, and…it hits her again, how different they are. How different their lives are. How she has a big, pretty sleigh bed, and a bookshelf and a desk and this and that, and Daryl sleeps on a mattress on the floor with all his clothes a toss away.

She thinks she's starting to understand, at the very least, his grouchiness.

But she follows him in, because, she's starting to realize, they're getting kind of good at following one another.

He's unceremonious about it, acts like she isn't there. Shuts the door, takes his socks off, then his pants, and moves around her for the edge of the bed. So, it's Daryl, in a sleeveless flannel and his boxers, getting ready to have a smoke. And she's still standing by the entrance, and she's still fully dressed, and the only thing her brain is processing is how much paler his legs are than the rest of him.

This is weird, this entire day. Still. But she's not uncomfortable, not right now. Because they're alone, and she's used to that. He's smoking lazily and looking out the window, and he would glare if she said it aloud, but he's got his thinking face on. Maybe he's thinking about the sirens and maybe he's worried, maybe he's thinking about the girl in his room.

Maybe he's thinking about cats. It doesn't matter.

She takes off her shoes, no socks because she was in a hurry to get out the house. Her jacket, her jeans. Her bra, shirt still on like she learned in the locker room, because if she's going to sleep here, she's going to be comfortable. Maybe she should be embarrassed by her underwear, an old pair, or the hair on her legs. Maybe she should be nervous, or apprehensive. But, it's been a weird day. So, she isn't.

When she sits down cross legged beside him, wiry blonde hairs peek out from both sides of her underwear. He notices, and when he opens his mouth, she thinks it will be to tease about that. Instead, "Why'd you come here?"

He hasn't asked _why_ since the first time, when she showed up in her sleep clothes, equally unsure about being in his space.

She looks out the window, sees what he sees (another apartment building, a few lights on).

What she likes about being with Daryl is that she's never disappointed in herself. She never feels like the old pieces of her are clinging on, fighting not to be abandoned. She never feels like she _has_ to smile or _has_ to laugh or has to do _anything_. She likes to do those things. She'll always be a hugger, a laugher, a romantic with her head in the clouds.

But she's different now; sees things for what they are a little more, for what they aren't. She doesn't have the same boundless energy as before.

And that's okay. With Daryl, that's okay. She can come to him, be with him, when none of the pieces of old Beth want to come out to play, when she feels morose and contemplative and deeply, deeply sad. She can be with him when she's giggly or pushy or high or low, and it doesn't matter. Because he never knew her before, but he gets her now.

And because he can't be disappointed in who she is now, neither can she.

Because he lets her sit, and think, and construct answers to questions. And he's patient with her. Another cigarette, thinking face hit with the light from one of three windows in his apartment.

"I didn't have anywhere else to go," she's not too loud because he wasn't; following him. She scooches along the bed until she can lay out, back to the mattress, feet against the wall, head in his lap. It's new, being so close to him _there_ , and for a few seconds he tenses, but then he calms and it feels natural. His thigh is warm under her hair, and she can smell him like this – beer, cigarettes, sweat, but some of his deodorant; he smells solid and strong. It makes her nuzzle down a little to feel his heat on her neck; it sparks something slow and hot in her stomach.

"The sirens creeped me out, so I left to find my daddy. Couldn't find him, so I went to work because I thought my uncle would be there. But he wasn't. So, I came here. I would've called, but I left my phone at home on accident."

She doesn't have to explain herself, not really, and that's not what this is. She's relaxed, feels like she's talking to Maggie before Maggie abandoned her. She's kicking her toes against the wall and getting sleepy, despite the noise of the siren still blaring.

He doesn't give her words, instead she gets a grunt and hand on her head.

It's not until he's tossed the rest of the butt out the window, shut the lights out, and pulled the comforter over her that he speaks.

"Glad you came. Thought some shit might be happening…don't know where you live, so."

He likes her, cares about her; she knows this, but it's the closest he's ever come to saying it. And it's special, she thinks, that they can be together in the dark like this. Comfortable with one another in a way that proceeds the time they've spent together; comfortable in themselves and trusting one another with the people they may be.

She grabs his hand, kisses his neck, and falls asleep.

.

It isn't the press of his cock against her ass or stomach that wakes her. It isn't Merle pounding on the door, or sunlight filtering through the windows, or an untimely phone call.

It's her bladder, full and making her hot. Her bladder wakes her, but the tail-end of a scream that knows no reservations gets her out of bed.

It's a curious thing, disaster. It's exciting in the buildup, if people are so lucky to have one. Something big to come out of the ordinary, to disrupt lives for a little bit. Something to talk about later, stories to be over exaggerated and romanticized. Running on adrenaline and finding the high in that, feeling the laughter that bubbles up out of disbelief.

This is disaster, Beth is sure, but she feels no adrenaline, no excitement. She's confused.

There are no more sirens. There's no fire or gunshots or…anything. Just a person, lying on the sidewalk. It's…she thinks they're dead, assumes it was the person screaming earlier. She doesn't know, she's only ever seen dead people in their caskets.

There's a person, dead. But there's someone else, and for all that he could be weeping into the corpse's neck, Beth knows he's biting it; it takes some time, as things do immediately after waking, but she's certain. She's watching someone _eat_ someone else.

.

The next few hours happen like this:

She wakes Daryl, wakes Merle, forgets about her bladder as fires do start and gunshots do ring.

She squeezes in his truck between the two brothers, both confused but alert. Stone faced, maybe worried.

She directs them through town, the beginnings of a horror story, to the farm. It's empty. (She thought it might be. But it's a _little_ worse than not being able to find your mom in the grocery store - when people are eating corpses and starting fires and you don't know if your body can handle another panic; maybe that grocery store is the size of Georgia and you're feeling more than a little weak, more than a little scared).

It's a crapshoot, deciding to try for Atlanta. What they know is this, Senoia is going to Hell and they don't understand why. They don't know where her daddy or uncle are, but her brother and sister are in Atlanta. And they aren't the only ones trying to get out.

It's strangely quiet for the horrors happening in the streets as they try to get through and out. It's quiet, but people are eating people, right on sidewalks and in parking lots and inside cars. Merle clicks the lock in place, for the third time, and Daryl starts another cigarette. The windows are rolled up, for obvious reasons. The smoke is thick, it hurts being trapped like this, waters her eyes that stare ahead of her and around her at her home. At the quiet chaos so different than that of the day before, at the fear in people she's known.

She doesn't understand what's happening. She doubts anyone really does. She doesn't understand how this happened so suddenly, why it's happening at all.

It's quiet in the truck, has been since she suggested Atlanta. Her head hurts with it, spins itself in circles with questions and theories that have no option for outlet. She's scared. She hopes Maggie or Shawn will be home; worries in the back of her mind that she won't remember how to get to their apartments. She hopes her daddy is okay, sleeping in someone's guest room, oblivious as usual.

She hopes the National Guard comes in and does what they can. That Obama gives a speech and the country mourns for her town and that the whole thing will be over soon. She hopes that, someday, people will find a way to over exaggerate this, to romanticize how they got out.

That it will become history. Like disasters do.

.

It becomes rapidly apparent that this is not blowing over.

Getting to Atlanta is a crash course in dealing with traffic with two Dixon men. Which means there's a lot of cussing and frustration and hitting the dashboard. Merle might need a hit. Daryl ran out of cigarettes an hour outside of Senoia.

But there's no getting _into_ Atlanta. Her heart can't slow down and her stomach is cold. If the little horrors of her hometown were terrifying, then she doesn't have a word for this. Because the city is nothing but a blockade of cars, some already deserted. The outline of a city she'd once dreamed of is hazy with smoke and cop sirens blare and helicopters fly overhead (and for all she thought apocalypses started at night, it's only about noon).

The brothers are tense. There's nothing to do. They're surrounded by countless cars, and despite a crossbow Daryl'd slung between his legs hours earlier, they aren't equipped to deal with whatever this is. There's nothing to do, and they wouldn't know what to do if there were.

Every time one of those _things_ stumbles by their truck, snarling and janky and _desperate_ , her breath hitches and she has to fight back tears. Daryl's taken to chewing on his thumbnail, maybe to replace the nicotine, but he squeezes her knee, tight and painful, when she gets afraid.

Until Merle can't take it anymore, the waiting and her fear, says _fuck it_ , and opens his door.

Daryl's face twists into an anger and frustration that's new to her. He smashes his fist into the glove compartment and she watches his chest rise and fall rapidly and violently.

 _His brother is a goddamn dumbass sonuva bitch._

Daryl is scared, his eyes shift and jump around and he's clutching his crossbow hard. Still, he gets out to follow his brother. And despite those things being out there, she gets out to follow him.

.

She's beginning to understand a lot more about the brother's relationship after Daryl leaves the safety of the truck to follow Merle.

It's not like she really has time and a clear mind to think about it, weaving between cars like they are, trying so desperately not to puke in fear when she hears a scream or thinks about those things roaming between cars, chasing and eating people.

But she thinks about it in small snatches – how much older Merle seems to be than Daryl. How, despite Daryl having a job and barely passable social skills, he lives in the conditions that he does. The way Merle talks to Daryl, and the anger it sparks…the obedience that follows.

She's sweating profusely. She's terrified and clutching Daryl's hand hard enough to make her own ache. Her lungs burn and her legs ache. She wants to cry, and she wants Merle to stop running so _they_ can stop running.

 _He'd follow his idiot brother to the end of the world, because that's all he's ever had._

It's an epiphany she has maybe a mile into running up the highway, through cars and over dead bodies and around those _things_. As they literally follow his idiot brother through the end of the world.

.

Eventually, she can't take it anymore. She can't run anymore, no matter the fear. Her lungs are about to burst and her tears are mixing with her sweat.

"Daryl, I can't." She's barely breathing, gasping and swallowing desperately as she tries to talk.

"I can't run anymore." He doesn't stop. In fact, he yanks her hand harder to keep her running. They're barely trudging through the woods, still after Merle, who'd hopped a divider between the highway and the wilderness what seems like a long time ago to Beth.

"Daryl, stop!" Maybe she sounds panicked, maybe he can't breathe either (for the ungodly amount of nicotine and tar built over his lungs, she's surprised he can run at all), but he stops. Very slowly, like he's trudging through mud, like his legs are made of metal.

"I'm sorry, I just can't breathe. I can't run anymore." This is to his back, to the crossbow slung over it. It looks odd. It looks heavy, and she never even knew he _had_ a crossbow. Never even knew that was legal. But he shoulders it like an extension of himself, and she watches it rise and fall with his breathing, watches his bare shoulders heave, too.

Her mind is telling her she's a quitter, that there are things out there very much trying to kill her. But it's quiet in the woods, though unsettling in its open spaces.

Daryl turns to her, and he looks as terrified as she feels. It makes him look tired, but his eyes are scary. Maybe, she thinks, he knows about survival. Maybe this isn't all that new to him.

When he tells her they can rest for a little before he starts tracking his brother, it's like she's talking to a different person. He's generally gruff, and she's never thrown off by it. But there's been a gentleness behind his voice, behind _him_ , since the night he took her away from that party. He talks to her with a smirk fighting at the edge of his lips, a shifting in his eyes that so often replaces laughter.

Now, there's nothing. He addresses her like she's nothing. Not with anger or annoyance or frustration. Just…she's not a child, and she refuses to let this throw her over the edge, but she can't let go of the small, immature whisper that maybe he doesn't like her right now.

They don't have time for her to think like an eighteen year old.

They rest. They're deep enough into the woods that the sounds of chaos don't reach them, but she can't feel calm. Those things are fast, and the thought of them brings terror and paranoia; it mixes sourly with the frustration that her body needs this breather. She regrets never taking gym class seriously.

When their breathing evens out, Daryl stands and pulls her up beside him; he's quiet. They don't run, there's nothing following them.

It's odd to watch him, this Daryl that seems nothing like the man she knows. He's angry, she can tell. But he's calm in the woods, in that he's not chewing at his thumbnail or tapping at anything or expelling ceaseless energy in one tick or another like he seems to do…always.

He's calm and he's quiet, and he's looking at the forest floor and walking like he has any clue where they're going, where Merle is. Maybe he does. Maybe there are whole parts of Daryl Dixon she knows nothing about.

.

They find Merle where the trees begin thinning and the grass gets thicker. He's sitting down like a little boy, like's he's been patiently waiting for them to catch up. Of the little she knows about him, Beth doubts Merle ever does much patiently.

"You get any of our shit, or you just run out here bare-assed baby brother?" It's almost sarcastic, and Daryl must take it as being rhetorical, because he doesn't answer.

Beth wants to snort – no, they didn't grab anything from the truck, (though they didn't really grab anything from the apartment), because they'd been too busy chasing after him.

Everything Beth thinks, Daryl is able to say with his face.

Merle isn't perturbed, as she's realizing must be his nature; he smiles like a snake again. She doesn't trust him when he does that.

"Not to worry, baby brother. Took you and jailbait so long to get here, thought I'd do a little scouting."

Neither of them takes the bait, asks what he's found in his scouting. Daryl's face looks painted on, like he's heard this sort of thing twice too many times before; he might be good at hiding his frustrations, were in not for the twitching of his hands, the rapid movement of his chest.

"There's a group, pitiful as all shit, less than a mile south from here. They ain't got much, but they got more than us. I say we act friendly, show up with the Girl Scout you got on your dick, and rob 'em for their shit when the time's right."

(Here's the thing – Beth knows, probably when Daryl does, that this is the plan they'll follow. She knows because he's gripping her hand to pain. She knows because his eyes are saying no. She knows because he answered his brother in that apartment and he followed him into the woods and just like she knows her own name, she knows Daryl does what Merle says. He's the toughest person she knows, intimidating and powerful, but at the end of the day he's someone's little brother).

Still, it's like meeting someone new, this one a slightly different Daryl than the one she met tracking through the woods, when he asks Merle how many people are in the group and when he wants to approach.

It's like getting the breath knocked out of her, because she doesn't want to do this. She doesn't want to do this, and she hurts because she knows he doesn't either.

Maybe Merle is a shitty brother. He must be, to not feel the resignation rolling off Daryl. He must be selfish and self-centered and self-absorbed, she decides, to call all the worst shots for someone who would do anything for him.

Of all the people to be stuck with, she's angry that she's stuck with Merle Dixon. But, in the detached lilt of his voice, in the hand still gripping hers, Beth figures Daryl isn't too happy he's stuck with Merle, either.

And she thinks of her luck, of his, that they got stuck with Merle together.

.

Getting into the group is easy enough. There are only seven of them, and they're all as panicked and afraid and confused as anyone else she's seen since leaving Senoia.

They're happy to see new people, people who are alive and sane, and they immediately open up the circle in which they'd been sitting to allow room.

Beth thinks they must have all found one another while trying to get out of their cities, or running through the woods, save a woman and little boy who must be mother and son. She thinks they're all trying to group her in, somehow, with Merle and Daryl.

Merle and Daryl, who let her lead the show. She does all the talking and laughing, forced as everyone else. She asks if they know anything, and they don't. Which, yeah. She assumes no one is going to know anything, ever. She asks them if they know the Green's – Hershel or Maggie or Shawn, but they all shake their heads; then everyone's passing around names. Again, no one knows anything. Ever.

She sits between the brothers during introductions, during questions, and eventually meals, and then as the sun is starting its decent. And she can hardly think through the panic that starts again - _please God let us be okay out here. Please God let those things stay away from here. Please God, keep me through the night so I may see tomorrow_ \- that just yesterday she was making dinner, and just yesterday those sirens started, and just this morning they fled.

She can barely think it, but once she does she feels drained for all the energy it took, all the fighting through fear it took to get a little observation like that out. But now there are no observations, save the light disappearing and the people bedding down. She wants to know how they're all so fearless. She wants to know how it could possibly be that she's the only one with a throat tights and hot with tears, the only one desperately afraid.

She wants to know how long a person can stay awake before exhaustion takes them.

But there's Daryl, and even though Merle had gone to sleep with all the others, he's sat beside her. They've been quiet, her with her fear festering in her mind. And she thinks, maybe, that he's worried. That he's been thinking. She thinks again, briefly, about just yesterday – that he'd sat thinking and smoking in his bedroom. And he had been worried earlier that day, about her; about being able to find her if those sirens ever amounted to anything.

He's worried now, too, she decides. No cigarettes, but his thumb in his mouth, tearing away at the nail. His other hand, free of hers for one of the first times all day, clutches the crossbow between his legs.

"You gonna sleep tonight?" He doesn't look at her when he asks, keeps his eyes straight ahead to the part of the clearing they'd walked through hours earlier. But when he talks, he sounds like himself. Like Daryl at Patty's on a Thursday nights; like Daryl in the truck's cab, half of a chuckle before he cuts himself off.

She might never know what relief feels like again; still, she thinks she sags with it at hearing him address her like himself. At hearing him sound so familiar, after a day of running and crying and meeting all the different faces of Daryl Dixon.

She looks at his profile. His ears stick out through the length of his hair. It makes her smile, maybe just a little bit.

"I probably can't. I'm afraid I won't wake up if I do." He doesn't say anything to that, doesn't move. She's learned that doesn't mean he isn't listening.

"Are _you_ gonna sleep tonight?" It's dumb, but she nudges his shoulder with hers, like they're out camping and she knows where her family is and corpses aren't eating the living. She doesn't feel relaxed, but she doesn't feel completely panicked for the first time all day.

He grunts, definitely doesn't even get close to a smile; all the same, he sways til his shoulder bumps against hers.

"I'm stayin up so all these dumb asses can sleep without getting ate up." He's worried, and tired too. He's a good man, Daryl is. Puts people above himself even if he doesn't realize it, even if he bitches the whole way through. He's a good man, and maybe he has a soft spot for people that can't care for themselves, like his brother and this group.

And maybe her.

Except, no. Because he tolerates his brother, and he's tolerating this group and he's really not too happy about either. But he likes her, hasn't tolerated her for a while. And she thinks, maybe, he likes her because she tries for herself; yes she can be weak with him, but she can be strong, too. Never asks him to carry her, never asks him to trudge through life supporting her weight simply because she _won't_.

He has a soft spot and he lets it take up all his energy, all his ability to say no, to look the other way.

She moves across the dirt until their knees touch and puts her head on his shoulder. It's almost instinctive, the way his thumb leaves his mouth and goes to her hip. They fit well together; they're good together, and she's afraid, terrified, but she's awake, and she's not going to let him sit up all night alone.

"You don't have to worry so much, Daryl. It'll be alright."

It's bullshit. She's surprised he doesn't have anything to say about it.

He squeezes her hip and pulls the crossbow to rest across his lap. They could wake Merle and take everything, try to get away in the dark and find a safer place. They don't; it's the first night they keep watch.

 **I spent a fair amount of time agonizing over this chapter, and I know that if I don't post it now, I never will (last night, I thought, "maybe I'll just delete the whole thing and start again").**

 **I know the direction of the story might not be what some of you wanted or anticipated, but I'm getting a very clear idea of what I want to do with this. I also know this might not feel like it fits so well with Part One, and for that all I can say is writing Beth, especially as someone who coincides with the way Daryl thinks of her, is a lot harder than I ever anticipated, but it seemed worthwhile to observe things from her stance. (Also that writing the start of the apocalypse in an honest way is just beyond me). I promise Part Three we'll be back in Daryl's mind, and I'll wrap this thing up all neat in a bow.**

 **Thank you for reading, reviewing, and following. You are really the best xx**


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